


In That Big Somewhere Out There

by rashaka



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Magic, Magical Realism, Romance, Season 3 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 10:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2106921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rashaka/pseuds/rashaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh, I had a fairy godmother once," Felicity laughed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In That Big Somewhere Out There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mystarsandmyocean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystarsandmyocean/gifts).



On her ninth birthday, Felicity had the rare and wondrous opportunity to witness a full-grown woman step through the glass of her bedroom mirror. Accompanied by a wave of vibrant sparkling lights, the woman looked directly at the child sitting on the bedspread and asked, "Name?"

"Felicity Meghan Smoak," reported the fourth grader in an Ariel Princess t-shirt, voice trembling in a mixture of rational fear and girlish awe (her mirror had never sparkled on its own before.)

The woman looked her up and down, then smiled.  "Well, Felicity, I'm your fairy godmother. Do you know what that means?"

Her eyes went huge, and she gave an optimistic squeak. "Wishes?"  
  
"Wishes," agreed the fairy. "One as a child, one as a maid, and one as a woman."

Felicity's eyebrows drew together at this unforseen wrinkle. "I have to be a maid to get my second wish? Does cleaning my room count?"

"Not that kind of maid, little one. It's an old word that means 'young woman'."

"Oh," Felicity said. "Can't I have all my wishes now?"

The fairy's laughter filled the room like chimes. "That'd spoil the fun, wouldn't it? Besides, it's good to save up. Valuable life skill." The newly nine-year-old didn't find this a convincing argument, but she was sufficiently distracted by the next question: "What is your greatest wish, Felicity Meghan Smoak? Think before you speak."

The tiny girl brought a lock of of mouse-brown hair up to her mouth and chewed on it. After a moment, she set her hands on her hips like She-Rah and said, "When I grow up I wanna better than _everyone_."

This was broad enough to get a full double-eyebrow raising. "Clever wish, little one, but unfortunately not specific enough. What would you like to be better at, darling?"

Felicity's eyes bounced around the room, as if considering the question for the first time. She pointed at the family computer, which she'd recently campaigned to keep in her room for schoolwork. "That!"

"You're a very practical child," said her fairy godmother, in the way that suggested this was less of a compliment than a worrisome indicator. "Very well. When you rise tomorrow, you'll find your talent meets your ambitions. If nothing else, you can look forward to a lifetime of job security."

"But I don't wanna job in security," frowned Felicity. The fairy laughed, told her not to count it out, and vanished with a sparkle into the bedroom mirror.

Timidly, Felicity approached the floor-length glass and touched its smooth surface. Nothing unexpected happened, so Felicity tried a second time, then a third. After a genuine scientific inquisition of about twelve unsuccessful attempts at following her fairy godmother into the mirror world, the little girl gave up and crawled under her purple bedspread. As her head dipped into her pillow, the back of her mind was already busy with all ways to take apart the house computer into a hundred thousand million billion little pieces.

 

*

 

"Oh, I had a fairy godmother once," Felicity laughed. She winked at the 'psychic' across the table, and held out her left palm. "I dreamed her up when I was a kid. Told her I wanted to be the best at my job."

"And are you?" asked Madame Alexandria of the Henderson Annual Carnival & Fair, taking the student's proffered hand and examining the soft lines in it. As she did the requisite palm reading, they enjoyed idle conversation about the power of magic, a subject the young woman in question had quite a number of opinions about.

Felicity giggled, because the touch was ticklish and she was more than a bit drunk. "Don't have a job yet! Ask me in four years."

Madame Alexandria tut-tutted over Felicity's hand, made a vague comment about long life, and then asked casually, "And what would you wish for now? If you could have any wish you wanted."

"Well..." drawled Felicity. "That's a loaded question, isn't it? Consider the variables. I could innocently wish to visit far-off places, then as soon as I turn around I find myself drafted into a terrible war and don't make it home for twenty years. Plenty of ways a careless wish could go ass-end-up! There's an entire sub-genre of literature about it."

"You're a very practical young woman," said the psychic, then pulled a brand-name bottle of water out from under her blanketed table and took a long sip.

Felicity heard that as a compliment, and preened. "Heyyyyyy," she complained a moment later, "Aren't you supposed to tell me my fortune?"

"Not that kind of psychic," waved Madame Alexandria. "I'm still curious what you'd wish for, if you could. Great love? A free spirit to whisk you away and bring a lifetime of happiness?"

As the words spilled out, the mood in the small, vibrantly colored tent took a noticeable plunge. Felicity's shoulders slumped and she reached out to pick a bit of fuzz from the table. "I had a great love," she admitted. "I thought he was pretty great, anyway. He didn't think the same of me, though." She tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear. "He was a dick."

"All men are," the psychic agreed. "Can't be avoided. But humor me: what would your ideal man be like? Or woman, whichever. Inherent flaws aside, what would you wish for?"

"I'd wish...I'd wish for a partner? I mean, sure, I'd want him to be hot, but I think the most important thing is that...he wouldn't leave me. Everyone leaves me, sooner or later. But if I could wish for the perfect man, I'd wish for a real partner. Someone to share a lifetime of adventures. We'd get along like best friends, and I'd trust him, and everything we did together would work out for the best."

Felicity's voice roughened on the last words, and she wiped her hand across her eyes. "Oh god, listen to me talking your ear off. I'm so drunk. This is your job and here I am monopolizing the conversation."

"No worries, little one." Madame Alexandria clapped her hands together and stood from the table. "Why don't you step outside and get some fresh air? Your friends are waiting for you."

"But the reading..."

"It's on the house, darling. Now, up, here you go!" Before she realized what had happened, Felicity stood once more outside the tent's beaded curtain, her hand still clutching a wrinkled ten dollar bill as she blinked under the flashing lights of the carnival.

 

*

 

In the deepest hollow of Ra's al Ghul's prison, Felicity leaned on Oliver's shoulder and sniffled. With one arm wrapped around her and the other tucked against his chest in a sling, there wasn't much he could do except mutter soft assurances into her hair. The chances of escaping this nightmare of cell were grim by any measure, but at least she wasn't alone.

It was probably selfish to be grateful Oliver was here, but in her heart Felicity would always be selfish over him. It didn't matter if they never made it past one disastrous date, if he came to his senses one day and married Laurel as destiny surely decreed, or if he tried to be the Arrow with no budget to speak of. She'd follow him regardless, because in the end all she wanted was to be part of his world.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked. The question barely moved the air in the cell, as if even small talk had a punishing weight in this place.

"Just that as awful as it is to say aloud, I'm glad you're here with me."

Oliver tucked her further into the crook of his shoulder, and pressed his cheek to her forehead. "It's not awful, Felicity. I'm glad to be here. I wish you weren't, but if that's the way it is then I'd rather be by your side than out there going mad trying to find you. Reduced to wishing and praying for any single thing to lead me to you."

"Wishing," huffed Felicity in an exhale. "That'd be nice. Wanna hear a story?"

With a dry chuckle, he said, "I've got time."

"When I was a little girl I could have sworn a woman walked out of my bedroom mirror and claimed to be my fairy godmother. She said I'd get three wishes over the course of my life."

She could feel Oliver smiling into her hair, though there was no light in this place. "You were an imaginative kid I take it."

"Funny enough, people kept telling me I was practical. Anyway, I used up my first wish saying that I wanted to be better than everyone else at computers." Oliver squeezed her shoulder in acknowledgement, which she appreciated. "Then later, when I was eighteen, I go to this fair down in Henderson. That's south of Vegas a little ways, mostly housing development. We're all drunk as skunks 'cause we're graduating in a few days, and my friends convince me to get a psychic reading. Except instead of a psychic, it's that woman again. The same woman I hallucinated as a child."

"Well, your stories aren't dull," said Oliver. "What'd you wish for this time?"

"I can't say," she replied. "I mean, I don't want to say. Ask me next month when we get bored."

"You're really not cut out for prison, are you."

"I'm really not," agreed Felicity. When she spoke, her teeth chattered from the chill. "So far, prison sucks."

Oliver grunted, then pulled her completely into his lap. She squeaked in the dark, before finally relaxing against his chest. The solid, masculine warmth of him filled her senses, and Felicity wished for the millionth time that one stupid drunken wish could come true.

"Tell me," the man she loved murmured in her ear. "Does this story end with you using your final wish to free us on a magic carpet?"

Felicity shook her head, and when she sighed the air moved across his collarbone. "Sorry, Oliver, I already used up my third wish. Done and gone. No more wishes for Felicity."  
  
"When?"

Moments ticked on in silence, until at last she answered him. "The night of the Undertaking."

"Yeah?" His surprise and sudden caution was evident in the way his good arm tightened around her waist. "What'd you wish for?"

Felicity closed her eyes against the darkness of their cell and whispered, "I wished for you to live."


End file.
